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Last week I read an article calling for the lifetime ban of any player caught using illegal performance enhancing drugs. Then I read Manny Ramirez failed a drug test using said illegal performance enhancing drugs. Of course there was media outrage and press conferences and the same public displays that followed Bonds, Clemens, McGuire pointing out their failings of integrity and personality flaws. How awful.

These performance enhancing drug presumably made all these stars skin break out, nuts shrivel to the size of raisins, and made them hostile. These drugs also made them play slightly better than without the drug, which fans who pay truckloads of money to be entertained at sporting events love. We love to see home runs and great plays by musclebound millionaire athletes. We expect it.

Unfortunately, sports writers and congressmen across the country would have us believe that these drugs are ruining society and destroying the great game of baseball.

Of course, the real crime is not the drugs. There is too much at stake (money) for a player to not to do everything he or she can to get an edge. Manny is doing what he should to keep his career alive and there is nothing wrong with it. This is why baseball is great. Back in the day, baseball players did everything they could to get an edge. Ty Cobb sharpened his spikes. Phil Neikro scuffed the ball, Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale threw at opposing batter’s heads upon occasion. It’s part of the deal and always has been. So now it’s just called cheating. It’s a shame. Funny, how Tiger Woods had 20/20 vision but got surgery to improve his vision to 20/15, better than perfect and to gain and edge, but no one cries foul.

The real crime is that some people have placed value upon athletes opinions and actions instead of being role models for their own children encouraging them to read books and taking the “great American past time” for exactly what it really is, a past time. Our morality is better spent examining why we are in two wars than wondering who hit a so-called illegal home run.